The Wedding Photographer
by Kassia525
Summary: Speculation on the possible events of Adrift II from the point of view of the wedding photographer


The Wedding Photographer  
  
******  
  
1520 ZULU  
12 June 2001  
  
"Ouch!" Clare exclaimed as the rubber band around the packages of photographs broke, snapping her hand. She sighed, thinking it would be a long day at work. Her boss had run out to do some quick errands after leaving her plenty of work to do, including numbering the prints for a huge preview album.  
  
The defective rubber band was quickly tossed to the other side of the table, out of her work area, and the bundle of 5X7 prints was stacked to the side where she could easily reach them. Clare picked up the first batch of prints and negatives off of the top of the stack, glancing at the top picture. It was a reception shot of guys in Navy dress whites. She smiled to herself; maybe work *would* be fun today. At least there were pictures of guys in uniforms to look at while putting this preview album together.  
  
Opening her black photo marker, she quickly matched up the negative numbers with the corresponding photographs for the first roll and went on to the second. The top print was an outdoor shot of the bride before the ceremony. Clare's first thought was why such a pretty woman would choose such an ugly wedding dress. She glanced at the rest of the pictures as she carefully wrote the roll and negative number on the back. Studying the last picture, Clare noticed that the smile on the bride's face didn't reach her large, expressive brown eyes. Actually, it looked as if the bride had cried the entire night before. All of the make-up in the world couldn't hide the shadowy bags under her eyes.  
  
She puzzled over this as she slid the next batch of pics and negatives out of their plastic sleeve. She quickly worked through more reception candids and pictures of the groom with his friends and family. Halfway through numbering the roll of ceremony shots, she stopped and took a closer look at the bride and groom. Even more confused now, she looked at the blue bag the prints had come in. On the line for the bride's name, there was only a date: 5/26/01. She made a mental note to ask her boss about it as soon as she got back.  
  
Clare was down to the last handful of rolls when she heard the door open and shut, followed by her boss walking in with an armload of photo mats and album cover boxes from the album supply store.  
  
"Jenn, did you put rolls from two different weddings in the same bag?" she asked as her boss set her load down at the other end of the table.  
  
"Is that the May 26th wedding?" she asked. When Clare nodded, she sighed, taking a seat next to her assistant. "I should have said something about that before I left. This is going to be a confusing wedding to put together. The bride and the groom that we were supposed to shoot didn't end up married."  
  
Jenn began separating the prints into piles: one for reception, one for ceremony, and one each for the bride and the groom before the ceremony. "I was running late for the wedding to start off with, then I got stuck in traffic. I expected the bride to be furious when I showed up an hour late, especially since she's in the military."  
  
"She's in the military?" Clare asked incredulously, thinking about the small, sad bride in the pictures.  
  
"Yup, a Marine. Her intended groom was Australian Navy." Jenn continued flipping through the stack of prints. She stopped to point out a cute blond wearing a deep burgundy dress in a 'before' picture with the bride. "You might remember this bride from the Simms wedding we did a couple years back. She was supposed to be the matron of honor for this wedding. When I got to the bride's room at the church, she was trying to calm the bride down and get her to go on with the wedding. I found out later that the bride's best friend and partner at work is also a fighter pilot and his plane went down in the ocean while he was flying back for the wedding. They found this out at the rehearsal dinner the night before. The weather got so bad that they couldn't continue the search for him after they found the other person he was flying with. The bride had stayed up all night waiting for news, and they didn't find him till early this morning. He was in pretty bad shape, so the bride wouldn't sleep till she heard that he would be okay. She was still waiting for the phone to ring when I got there. Somehow her friends convinced her to part with her cell phone long enough to take pictures."  
  
"Did the groom know about all of this?"  
  
"Yes. Eric was shooting this wedding with me, and he was with the groom. He says that the groom was pretty upset that his bride-to-be was delaying their wedding. I asked the matron of honor about it, and she told me that the bride and her best friend are partners at work, and she thinks that the groom feels threatened by his fiancee's close relationship with her best friend. Anyway, the groom showed up in the bride's room around noon--the ceremony was an hour late by then..."  
  
******  
  
1710 ZULU  
26 May 2001  
  
The female wedding photographer was standing outside the door to the bride's room getting some air. She nodded to Mic Brumby as he slipped into the room, unnoticed by everyone there except Renee, who smiled thinly at him. She hung back from the group surrounding Sarah MacKenzie and blocking Mic from his bride's view. The admiral, Bud, Harriet, Singer, Chloe, and Tiner were anxiously listening to Mac's end of a conversation on her cell phone.  
  
"Uh-huh. I understand. Thank you, doctor," Mac smiled, a touch of relief creeping into her tired voice.  
  
"Is the commander going to be okay?" Bud asked as soon as she disconnected.  
  
"They've stabilized him, but he's still in critical condition and hasn't regained consciousness. They said they would permit visitors. They don't think that his condition is going to change drastically any time soon. Right now, all we can do is wait and pray that there's no serious problems that they can't detect while he's still unconscious."  
  
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Mic chose that moment to make his presence known. "I'm glad he's going to be okay, luv. Now we can go on with the wedding."  
  
Mac's small smile disappeared as she turned to her fiancee. He stepped forward, giving her a kiss on the cheek as she asked, "Mic, when did you get in here?"  
  
"Just a moment ago, but now that we know that Commander Rabb is stable, I'm going to go back out so that we can start the wedding."  
  
Hearing them mention starting the wedding, the photographer walked back into the room to get her camera. She was rummaging through her bag for a new roll of film when the bride asked if they could put the wedding off just a little longer so that she could run to Bethesda and see for herself that her partner was okay. Jenn shook her head; she didn't think this wedding would ever start. It was a good thing that they had promised to pay her extra to stay when it first became evident that the wedding would take longer than planned. Since she didn't have a second wedding to shoot that day, so she could wait as long as the clock was running, regardless of whether or not she was actually taking pictures.  
  
Mic pulled Mac to the side of the room, away from everyone else, but with the heavy silence, it wasn't difficult to hear their conversation.  
  
"You talked to the doctor, Sarah. He is going to be fine. Why can't we start the wedding now? Everyone has been waiting patiently, but this is getting a bit absurd."  
  
"Harm wouldn't have been out there flying in that weather if it hadn't been for me. He wanted to be here for my wedding."  
  
Yah, probably to crash it, Mic thought bitterly. Out loud, he smoothly offered, "We can go see him before we leave for our honeymoon, Sarah. Now can we please start our wedding?"  
  
"No, we can't, Mic," she raised her voice. The other occupants of the room were trying to pretend that they weren't eavesdropping, but there was no way to not overhear the angry Marine. "Harm is my best friend. He's always been there for me, and I owe it to him to at least check on him. I thought you would at least try to understand."  
  
"I have tried to understand," he retorted, all pretense of placation gone, "but frankly Sarah, I feel that you're more concerned about him than you are about me."  
  
"I'm marrying you, Mic!" she said, exasperated.  
  
"Really, Sarah? Prove it to me. I'm going to leave now to wait for you at the altar. Five minutes from now, will you be there with me, or will you be with Harm?"  
  
She couldn't believe that he had just given her such an insensitive ultimatum. She stared at him for a moment, digesting what he'd just told her before she replied. "You should know better than to challenge a Marine. I am going to check on my partner. If you're not here when I get back, well, I guess life goes on."  
  
With that, Mac pushed past him, grabbing her keys off of the counter by the door on her way out. A moment later, Harriet ran after her, yelling, "Colonel, I don't think you should be driving when you're upset like this..."  
  
Forgotten in the chaos, Jenn observed the aftermath. The officers were trying to act as if nothing had happened. The admiral quickly excused himself to check on the guests while the others decided it was safest to talk about work.  
  
The only one that seemed happy was the flower girl. Since the camera was already in her hand, Jenn snapped a picture of the young girl sitting in a giant upholstered chair with an extremely self-satisfied smile on her face. Jenn walked up to her, and squatting next to the chair, couldn't resist asking, "So, what are you so happy about?"  
  
Chloe glance over at Mic. He was across the room talking to Renee where he couldn't hear her whisper conspiratorially, "My sister is still in love with Harm. I wasn't sure until we heard about the crash last night. When I saw her reaction, I knew. This only confirmed it."  
  
"So you don't think she's coming back?"  
  
"Not to become Mrs. Mic Brumby."  
  
******  
  
1600 ZULU  
12 June 2001  
  
"Sounds like a bad soap opera plot," Clare commented as she laid out the ceremony shots out on the carpeted floor of the bride's room where she and Jenn were assembling the preview album. She paused to scrutiny a close-up portrait of the two that were actually married. It was the same groom standing in front of the altar, but a different bride was in his arms. This bride was wearing an even more hideous wedding dress. Holding up the picture, Clare asked, "Who is this bride then?"  
  
Jenn laughed. "If you thought the first part was too soap opera-like, you're going to love what happened next. Apparently, Sarah and her partner at work had been dancing around their feelings for each other since they met five years ago. The moment the bride-to-be walked out, the girlfriend of the guy in the hospital assumed the worst."  
  
******  
  
1720 ZULU  
26 May 2001  
  
Renee walked up to Mic and bluntly told him, "Congratulations, I think you just screwed us both."  
  
"I beg your pardon?"  
  
She impatiently blew air between her lips. "If you had told her she could go, what would have happened? Mac would have gone to the hospital, seen Harm was okay, then come back here to marry you. You forced her to choose, and--let's face it--you lost."  
  
"That means I'm screwed, not you," Mic said bitterly.  
  
"No, you know as well as I do that as soon as Harm finds out that Mac didn't marry you, I'll be pushed out of the picture. You would have been married before the end of the day, and once Mac was officially out of the picture, I think Harm would have proposed to me. So thank you very much, Mic."  
  
"I'm sorry, Renee. I just hate that I've had to take second place in Sarah's life whenever Harmon Rabb decides to get into trouble."  
  
"Not as sorry as I am. I already bought a dress thinking it was only a matter of time before I'd get to be the blushing bride," she looked away in disgust.  
  
Mic was silent for a moment. Renee stood in front of him, her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on the floor as her mind conjured up all of the possible worst-case scenarios.  
  
"You said you already..." Mic started. Renee looked up at him, anger evident in her eyes. He swallowed quickly, stuttering, "You, said, you, uh... you have a dress."  
  
She looked at him, her entire stance conveying, an unspoken '...and your point is?'  
  
"Well, I was thinking, since we're both 'screwed,' as you put it, and you do have a dress, and I've got the rest of the wedding, minus the bride..."  
  
Renee figured out what he was trying to say after a few moments. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You're asking if I'll marry you?"  
  
"Yes, I believe I am. But if you don't want to, no worries," he smiled wanly.  
  
Renee took a moment to think about it. She had always known that Harm's heart could never completely belong to her. And her idea of marriage probably would never quite agree with his. Either way, it didn't exactly spell out 'happily ever after' for her.  
  
She looked at Mic and thought about how well they got along, especially while worrying about the faithfulness of their significant others. And the irony in the rejected suitors marrying each other... it was worthy of Hollywood.  
  
"I think I'd like to take you up on that offer," she told him calmly. "I just have to go get my dress. I'll be back before Mac could ever make it to Bethesda and back anyway."  
  
Renee kissed him on the cheek before turning to go. Mic stood for a second, not completely registering that she had actually agreed to his spontaneous proposal. As soon as it sunk in, he turned to find the wedding photographer on the sofa talking to Chloe and Bud. Mic tapped Jenn on the shoulder, and politely asked, "There's been a slight change in plans, but would you be willing to change our photography contract and start over with a different bride?"  
  
******  
  
1630 ZULU  
12 June 2001  
  
"The guests' reaction was one of comtlete shock," Jenn told Clare. They were now working on the last portion of the album, which was all of the reception photographs.  
  
"I wish I had been there. But I can't help thinking that Mic and Renee were taking a giant risk? They didn't know for sure that Sarah wouldn't come back, and then everything would go on as planned."  
  
"I'm sure they thought about that, but they decided to cut their losses and go for broke. And Sarah did come back."  
  
Clare stared at Jenn. "How did she take it?"  
  
"She took it rather well. Harriet was with Sarah at the hospital, while her husband was still at the wedding. He called to tell his wife what had happened, and she broke the news to Sarah. After she was sure that her partner would be okay without her, Sarah decided to go to the reception and congratulate the new couple. She even danced with the groom," Jenn said, laying out the picture of the intended bride and groom dancing together.  
  
If Clare hadn't known better, she would have assumed that they actually did get married because Sarah was still wearing her wedding dress in the picture. Shifting her attention away from the photographs, Clare asked, "How is the guy in the hospital doing?"  
  
"I don't know. I'll have to ask when Renee comes to pick up the album," Jenn said, looking over the layout of the final pictures of the bride and groom running to their limousine after the reception. The guests lined the walk, tossing handfuls of paper confetti over the happy couple. The last shot was of Mic and Renee kissing in the back of the limo.  
  
Clare sat back on her heels and glanced over the pictures spread out across the carpet in front of her, waiting for further instructions from her boss.  
  
Jenn slapped her knees as she stood up. "This looks good. Go ahead and map the negative numbers and insert it into an album. I'll call and let them know that their preview album is ready to go."  
  
The End   
(5/24/01-5/28/01)  



End file.
